Tribute to Flo's Meatloaf Surprise
by greenconverses
Summary: Rachel has a new hobby, and it's annoying Nico to death. No pun intended. Futurefic with some shippy undertones.


**Author's notes:** Wrote this Nico and Rachel drabble a couple weeks ago, and have finally remembered to post it here. Just a little snapshot of one of a post-series idea mine where Rachel and Nico become awesome, cross-country monster hunters together in college.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Percy Jackson and the Olympians. Don't I wish I did though.

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**Tribute to Flo's Moatloaf Surprise**

_Click_.

Nico blinks, and then scowls across the table at his redheaded companion as she lowers the old-fashioned film camera from her face and sets it beside her plate. The black plastic and silver metal casing glints at him mockingly in the bright fluorescent lights of the roadside diner.

"I'm calling this one, 'Tribute to Flo's Meatloaf Surprise,'" Rachel declares, reaching for her coffee cup. "In honor of the chunk of meat dangling from your mouth."

Nico's scowl deepens, and he wipes his mouth off with the back of his hand. Rachel's been taking all sorts of pictures of him throughout the day, usually when he's not expecting it and looks most like an idiot. She's going through a photography phase at the moment, to widen her artistic interests, or so she's told him. He just thinks she likes blinding him with her flashbulbs for fun.

"You know, I invited you on this quest because I need your help," he says seriously, indicating the camera with his fork. "Not so you could be my personal paparazzo."

"I wouldn't call sneaking into my dorm in the middle of the night and demanding that I come on this road trip to slay monsters with you when I wouldn't give you a proper prophecy an _invitation_. More like coercion, really."

"Well, you said yes in the end, didn't you?" he mutters grumpily, shoving his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket.

Rachel gives him this look, the one that usually frustrates him and turns him on the same time, and then takes a dainty sip of her coffee. When he's with her, alone like this, he sometimes notices these polite, lingering remnants of her days at Clarion Ladies Academy – they look out of place in the blur of movement and life that's Rachel Elizabeth Dare.

"Only because I needed an interesting subject for my photography final, and you, Nico di Angelo, are interesting with a capital 'I.' I'll have the best portfolio in the class," she replies at last, setting the cup down. "By the way, the cute old lady serving pie behind the counter is actually an ugly old monster… emphasis on the ugly."

Nico turns in his seat, and squints at the blue haired woman with the pink apron closely. Her image shifts momentarily and he catches a glimpse of something green, scaly, and with sharp teeth before it snaps back in place again.

"Yeah," he says quietly. "She's definitely not a looker – "

_Click_.

He whips his head around just in time to see Rachel lowering the camera again, her pink lips turning upward in a smirk.

"I'm calling that one 'Scruffy James Dean Wannabe at Late Lunch,'" she says, tucking the camera back into her purse before he can lunge across the table and snatch it from her. "If it turns out all right, it could be the centerpiece of my collection."

"If you're not careful, you'll be calling your camera 'Smashed Shit on the Interstate' if you don't get that out of my face for the rest of the day."

She drains the last of her coffee, and reaches back to tie her hair back in a ponytail. If she notices the way he's examining the long line of her exposed neck, she doesn't say anything.

"Yeah, yeah, you can worry about my camera stealing whatever soul you have left later," she replies, leaning forward. Her green eyes are alight in the way Nico has come to associate with danger and mischief. "Right now, we've got a monster to slay."

"You mean I've got a monster to slay. You're just going to sit here and look… pretty," he finishes as she slides out of the booth, marching off to hit the monster with the damsel-in-distress routine she's been practicing since the tenth grade. It usually doesn't work, but Rachel likes to pretend otherwise.

Nico sighs loudly, and begins counting to ten under his breath. He's at seven when the screams start.


End file.
